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Yours always,

Freddie

“Who’s Freddie?”

Nolan paused at the bottom of the stairs and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He, Eli, and King had stayed until last call, and although he wasn’t hungover this morning since he’d only had one beer, he was realizing that he didn’t enjoy seeing two o’clock in the morning unless he was in Eli’s bed.

Which he hadn’t seen last night. Eli had kissed him goodnight in the bar’s parking lot and told him to take King home.

“Because if he keeps using his souvenir cup as a microphone while singing ‘Screech In’ from Come From Away at the top of his lungs, someone’s going to call the cops.” Eli had paused as King sang about being a Newfoundlander. “He’s doing all the characters’ parts.”

“He saw the play, like, eighteen times last time it was in Toronto.”

Now, Nolan ignored the scent of coffee and joined King in the living room. “If you sang ‘Screech In’ in a parking lot and did all the characters’ parts perfectly, does that make you a real Newfoundlander?”

“If only. Maybe a decent understudy, though.” King waved a stack of papers at him. “Who’s Freddie?”

“Where’d you get those?”

“They were on the table. I wasn’t snooping, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Nolan grunted a non-reply and headed for the coffee. He hadn’t meant to leave those out for King to see. Reading the letters already made Nolan feel like a voyeur. He didn’t want someone else snooping into Freddie’s life. Even a someone else of the best-friend variety made him feel a little squicky.

He was suddenly glad he hadn’t left the letter Eli had written him on the table too. That was on his dresser in his bedroom with the shirt button Eli had ripped off sitting on top.

“Sooooooo?” King craned his head back and looked at him upside down over the back of the couch. “Who’s Freddie?”

“I don’t know,” Nolan said, grabbing a mug from the cupboard and pouring himself coffee. “Eli and I found those letters in a messenger bag in a storage room at the arena. We’ve been trying to find Freddie—or Annie—to give them back.”

“What were you doing in a storage room? Something kinky, I hope.”

“Sadly, no.” Chuckling, Nolan sat on the opposite end of the couch from King. “I was looking for something. Anyway, we haven’t had any luck finding Freddie because as far as we can tell, there was no Freddie on the Trailblazers back then, and everyone we know who would’ve played with him doesn’t remember him.”

“Well, that’s sad as fuck.”

Nolan paused with his mug halfway to his mouth. Damn. It was sad. His gut cramped at the thought of being so completely forgotten.

“Eli and I think that Freddie is a nickname that only Annie used,” he said. “Which is why no one can identify him.”

“Or maybe there is no Freddie or Annie.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you found these—” King waved the letters again. “—in a messenger bag? Like, for school? So maybe these were a class assignment for a creative writing class, and Freddie and Annie are fictional.”

That gave Nolan pause for a moment before he shook his head. “I don’t think so. He names the team captain in the first letter, and he’s got intimate knowledge of early-days Trailblazers’ culture changes. I don’t think you can make that shit up.”

“Fair.” King pointed at a sentence at the bottom of what Nolan recognized as the third letter. “What do you think he was afraid of? He asks here, but he never really picks it back up again in the following letters. Do you think he ever figured it out?”

Nolan shrugged. “I mean, he risked it all with Annie, which in itself was a gamble. I can understand why he wouldn’t want to risk himself with his team. He says it right there in the letter—what if the guys become his family but he gets traded again? It’ll hurt less if he doesn’t form attachments.”

“Sometimes you have to take risks to get what you want.”

“Says the king of no commitments. No pun intended.”

King hummed in agreement. “And you’re the guy who wants to commit but won’t let himself.”

Stung, Nolan glared at him. “That’s not true.”